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PECIAL SECTIO
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A Bar Association With An Illustrious History
The Editor interviews John J. (Jack)
Regan, President of the Boston Bar
Association and a partner in the firm,
Wilmer Hale LLP.
Editor: As an attorney with an active
practice and a who’s who of Fortune
500 clients, how have you always
made bar association activities a
major priority?
Regan: I’ve always tried to balance my
practice with pro bono work, bar association activities, and community service,
which is part of my firm’s oxygen. This
takes discipline on my part, but I think
it’s well worth the effort.
Editor: Massachusetts courts have
been perennially underfunded. What
efforts have been undertaken during
your term to stimulate the legislature
to allocate more resources?
Regan: We’ve constructed a timeline of
advocacy activities that goes throughout
the entire budget year. Initially, I sat
down with the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Judicial Court to understand
from her perspective the history of funding (and underfunding) of the courts,
what services and courts have been most
impacted, and how the BBA could be
useful. From there I met with the other
eight chief justices of the specialty
courts, including the Chief Justice for
Administration and Management of the
Trial Court who oversees these specialty
courts.
A major concern is the significant
increase in pro se litigants. This pattern
is particularly pronounced in courts like
the Family Court where there are domestic relations issues that need attention, in
the Housing Court where there are tenant/landlord issues, in the Land Court
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where there are foreclosure issues, and
in the Juvenile Court where there are
behaviorally-challenged children who
need individualized educational plans.
We also hear from our District Courts
that minor criminal matters increase during severe economic downturns.
At the BBA, we’ve also reached out
to our seven Sections that deal with the
courts and asked their members to report
back to us on what they are seeing in
terms of the effect of under-resourced
courts on their clients and practices.
Combining those reports with the findings gleaned from my visits with the
chief judges, we have developed data
and stories demonstrating the impact of
funding cuts, which we present to the
Governor’s counsel to advocate for reasonable funding for the courts, prior to
submission of the Governor’s budget.
We will soon submit to the Massachusetts Legislature a research report
setting forth our findings and positions
on the court budget. I spend more of my
time on court budget issues than any
other public policy matter.
Later in the budget process, the BBA
will involve general counsel from major
companies in Massachusetts, by asking
them to write letters stating the business
case for reasonable funding for the
courts. The BBA is co-sponsoring a
symposium at Suffolk University Law
School on April 26, in partnership with
the New England Legal Foundation and
the Rappaport Center at Suffolk, to discuss the courts’ budget from the perspective of the business community. In
May or June, it all comes together as the
Legislature’s budgetary process moves
to a conclusion.
Editor: I understand your legislative
agenda is tightly integrated. Can you
elaborate?
Regan: Our job is to be an advocate for
vulnerable constituencies that use the
courts’ services – such as the elderly,
children, veterans, victims of crime, and
the poor – and the lawyers who handle
their cases. So in addition to advocating
for the Massachusetts state court budget
– and making clear the impact of
reduced staffing levels in the courts – we
advocate as well for the budgets for
legal services, which support lawyers
for the disadvantaged, public defenders
and private lawyers who defend indigents accused of crimes, and the District
Attorneys. All four of those groups
require different arguments to support
their cases for reasonable funding.
Editor: Tell us about your work on the
diversity and inclusion front.
Regan: As you know, we are very committed to advancing diversity and inclusion. One of my predecessors set up a
John J. (Jack) Regan
Diversity Task Force whose work led to
the creation of the BBA’s Diversity and
Inclusion Section. During the last year,
the presidents of six affinity bar associations – the Massachusetts Black
Lawyers Association, the Massachusetts
Black Women Lawyers Association, the
Asian Lawyers Association, the South
Asian Bar Association, the Massachusetts Association of Hispanic Attorneys,
and the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay
Bar Association – began serving as
steering committee members of the
BBA’s Diversity and Inclusion Section,
to help set the BBA’s course in this area.
This arrangement has led to closer relationships between the BBA and these
other bar associations, and some very
successful professional networking
events. Discussions are now underway
for the sharing of resources between the
organizations and cross-participation in
various activities such as substantive
programming.
Through the Diversity and Inclusion
Section, we also offer a mentoring program. Approximately 45 lawyers are
being actively mentored by seasoned
lawyers from all practices, public and
private.
Editor: Have you undertaken any special programs to assist lawyers in light
of the economic downturn and a
changing professional landscape?
Regan: I’m glad you asked. We have an
umbrella program called Lawyers in
Transition that covers three groups. First,
young lawyers coming out of law school
who can’t find jobs, and young lawyers
who found jobs but have lost them.
Through a series of programs we try to
provide exposure to skills that young
lawyers would learn were they in actual
practice. We have also made pro bono
opportunities available to them, and
exposed these younger lawyers to more
senior lawyers who have acted as mentors for them.
Secondly, we have re-energized the
Senior Lawyers Section – developing a
series of programs to deal with their very
different issues of transition, which often
involve winding down and taking on
more nonprofit and pro bono work while
still practicing.
Third, we have a group that is in
between – lawyers in the prime of their
careers who are frozen in place or without jobs, but who would normally be
moving between the public and private
sectors. We have presented these lawyers
with others, from various areas of the
profession, to talk about what it’s like
working for the Massachusetts Attorney
General’s Office or the U.S. Attorney’s
Office, or being in-house counsel, so this
group can at least think about how they
can make connections to change jobs and
what awaits them when they do so.
Editor: Have you seen a greater participation on the part of lawyers in volPlease turn to page 48
Page 48
The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
Corporate Counsel Organization Highlights
Letter From The Chair Of The Boston Bar Association
To The Readers Of The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel:
Recently the Boston Bar Association released a new report, Getting It Right:
Improving the Accuracy and Reliability of the Criminal Justice System in Massachusetts. The BBA Task Force that produced this report was appointed by the
BBA’s immediate past president, Kathy Weinman, and co-chaired by David E.
Meier of Todd & Weld and Martin F. Murphy of Foley Hoag, and consisted of
twenty individuals representing the broadest possible group of professionals from
the criminal justice system. The Task Force was made up of senior law enforcement
officials, a former chief justice of the Massachusetts State Appeals Court, a senior
scientist from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory, a senior attorney
from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, leaders in
the New England Innocence Project, chief counsel for the state’s public defender
agency, state prosecutors, and criminal defense attorneys, many of whom are former federal and state prosecutors themselves.
The Task Force worked for over fourteen months on the central premise that for
every defendant wrongly convicted, a criminal goes free and society remains at
risk, while the individual who has escaped the consequences of his/her actions is
free to commit crimes against other victims.
Getting it Right makes three recommendations, including two proposals for new
legislation. The first recommendation focuses on the creation of evidence collection protocols and training in best practices for evidence collection. These procedures have already been instituted by many police departments, including the
Boston Police Department.
The first piece of legislation would provide post-conviction access to and testing
of forensic evidence and biological material for defendants who claim factual innocence. Currently, Massachusetts is one of only four states that does not have such a
post-conviction forensic evidence statute.
The second piece of legislation would expand the membership of Masssachusetts’ Forensic Sciences Advisory Board (FSAB) to include three laboratory scientists, as well as three members of the bar with experience in criminal practice and
forensic science issues. Right now there are no scientists on the board. The addition of scientists and members of the bar would provide a range of perspectives
from those professionals who depend upon the state’s forensic science system.
The Boston Bar Association looks forward to working with the Massachusetts
Legislature to implement the recommendations of the Task Force. Getting It Right
and the legislation it proposes exemplify what can be accomplished by a metropolitan bar association blessed with talented lawyers willing to expend their time, talent
and political capital to help their community.
Best Regards,
Jack Regan
Boston Bar
Continued from page 45
unteerism to help people hurt by the
recession?
Regan: Let me give you a few examples.
The Bankruptcy Section of the BBA
meets periodically with the bankruptcy
judges. Out of those meetings has come
one of our newest pro bono initiatives –
a collaboration of the BBA with the Volunteer Lawyers Project, a nationally recognized public interest agency that
assists low income people needing legal
help. The VLP, working with the BBA,
has created a program to provide representation for Chapter 7 debtors. As we
speak, we have more than 100 publicspirited lawyers who have volunteered to
handle such cases – which involve a liquidation that provides the debtor with a
fresh start – and are engaged in a training
session led by two bankruptcy judges
and experienced bankruptcy counsel.
In addition, the BBA has developed
two significant programs in other courts
affected by the pro se crisis. In the Housing Court, through a ten-year-old program called “Lawyer for a Day,” the
BBA has mobilized transactional real
estate lawyers to act as facilitators for
processing the pro se litigants who are
appearing in that court in great numbers.
For instance, I was told by one of the
judges in the Housing Court that on a
day when they did summary process
eviction cases, 189 of the tenants in 203
cases had no lawyers. Our lawyers meet
with these litigants to facilitate the management of their cases by identifying the
issues, completing necessary forms, and
often resolving the matter by way of conciliation.
In the Family Court, we have a program whereby lawyers engage in limited
representation. That is, instead of representing a client from start to finish, a
lawyer will undertake to represent a
client only on a particular matter of
importance, which, if it gets decided one
way or the other, can often be determinative of the outcome of the case. An
example would be if someone has lost a
job and needs to have an increase in
child support or alimony, or, if they are
the paying party, they need to bring to
the court’s attention their need for relief
in paying court-ordered child support or
alimony because of their loss of income.
Having a lawyer who deals with just this
piece of a person’s distress can make a
big difference. But, as a collateral benefit, it provides a resource to the Family
Court that needs help amid decreased
staffing from diminished funding and the
additional management challenge that
pro se litigants present.
Lastly, I would mention that opportunities aren’t always planned for – sometimes they walk in the door. In our case,
it was a lieutenant colonel from the
Judge Advocates General Corps of the
Massachusetts Army National Guard
who walked into the BBA’s offices, and
told us that soldiers and marines in
Afghanistan and Iraq were distracted
from their missions because of legal
problems affecting their families back
home – problems in many instances
exacerbated by the economy. We have
put together a diverse group of 25 people, broken into subcommittees to better
understand specific issues. We are now
working to mobilize lawyers with certain
skill sets to assist active duty, reserve,
National Guard, veterans, and their families. (See page 48 of the February 2010
issue of The Metropolitan Corporate
Counsel for further discussion.) As a
U.S. Navy veteran, I understand the
importance of this work.
Editor: We’re running your letter in
this issue about the BBA’s report,
“Getting It Right: Improving the
Accuracy and Reliability of the Criminal Justice System.” What more can
you tell us about that?
Regan: My predecessor, Kathy Weinman of Dwyer & Collora, convened a
task force to study wrongful convictions,
and determine how best to prevent them.
Kathy recruited two terrific co-chairs,
David E. Meier of Todd & Weld LLP and
Martin F. Murphy of Foley Hoag, who in
turn recruited a balanced group of criminal law professionals representing every
perspective on questions relating to the
apprehension and investigation of those
accused of criminal activity, and their
movement through the criminal justice
system. (See page 48 in this issue.) From
start to finish the study took 18 months.
While the term of the BBA President is
12 months, Kathy kindly stayed
involved, which was a major reason for
the success of the task force. The task
force’s report has been widely distributed and well-received in the law
enforcement, criminal defense, and judicial communities.
Editor: If you could complete just one
initiative during your term, what
would it be?
Regan: I’ve tried to move away from the
idea of major initiatives lasting only one
presidential term because that can be disruptive, in the sense that the whole organization has to lurch every 12 months in
the direction that a particular president
might want to take. About a year and a
half ago the BBA, led by Paul Dacier,
General Counsel of EMC, and Christine
Netski from Sugarman, Rogers, Barshack & Cohen P.C., committed itself to
a strategic planning process. Through
that process, we identified what the BBA
(not just the president) needs to accomplish in the areas of the BBA’s internal
organization, its presence in the community, and its role as a major voice in public policy, particularly with regard to
questions affecting the administration of
justice. Most of my work this year
involves executing the strategic plan.
In working closely with my two successors, I have tried to encourage all of
March 2010
us as officers to think about the execution of the strategic plan as a three-year
continuum. As the “Getting it Right”
report and the military legal services task
force show, initiatives are often so big
and so complex that they rarely get done
in 12 months. Longer term thinking
leads to more cohesive programs for the
BBA, which is a very complex and
dynamic organization. It also provides
the staff with greater predictability about
what we are all trying to accomplish
together.
Editor: There has always been a
strong desire to provide pro bono services to the underserved in Boston,
going back to the days of John Adams
when he defended British occupiers of
the city. What underlies this predisposition on the part of Boston’s lawyers
to assist the less fortunate?
Regan: It is part of the culture in Boston
for there to be a strong pro bono and civil
engagement tradition in the legal community. Over time, there have been
notable cases in which lawyers have handled pro bono matters that have excited
young lawyers, who have been attracted
to lawyers or firms that have done that
kind of work. For instance, at a recent
Law Day Dinner, the BBA asked all the
lawyers representing Guantanamo
detainees to come up to the stage so they
and their firms could be recognized. Several dozen lawyers stepped forward.
Also, lawyers who think about it
understand that having a balance in their
practices is an important part of being
able to feel professionally satisfied over
the long term. The Boston Bar Association has been known for offering innovative and effective pro bono services, so
I don’t think it’s an accident that when
the United States Army had a significant
issue with their soldiers in the field, that
they came to the BBA for help for the
soldiers’ families in Massachusetts who
needed legal assistance. The Army knew
that the BBA had the ability to mobilize
the city’s bar across the many disciplines
of law needed to address this problem.
I would add that the BBA has been
deeply involved with the Boston public
schools for many years on a variety of
fronts, including sending lawyers into
classrooms to teach about principles of
justice and democracy. Out of this relationship came a summer jobs program,
which was started in 1993 by now Chief
Judge Sandra Lynch of the Court of
Appeals for the First Circuit. Dozens of
inner city high school students have
worked in law firms and learned to operate in a professional environment. This
project also enhances diversity in the
legal profession – you need to interest
people in their early years in legal career
goals, such as being a secretary in a law
firm, a courtroom clerk, a probation officer, a lawyer, or a judge. This legacy and
opportunity for engagement is why our
keynote speaker for this year’s Law Day
dinner is Dr. Carol Johnson, the Superintendent of the Boston public schools.
So while John Adams certainly
started things, with his successful
defense of the British soldiers at the
Boston Massacre trial, we are his fortunate heirs of a pro bono and community
service heritage that has taken a firm
hold among the legal profession in our
city.
Please email the interviewee at [email protected] with questions about this interview.